


Strength and Patience (are not our strong suits)

by segfault



Category: The Raven Tower - Ann Leckie
Genre: Blood, Fictional Religion & Theology, Gen, Gods, POV First Person, Worship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-07 08:57:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21455419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/segfault/pseuds/segfault
Summary: After the Raven's attack at Ard Vusktia, the Myriad must find a way to rescue her friend.
Comments: 18
Kudos: 50
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Strength and Patience (are not our strong suits)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ellen_fremedon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellen_fremedon/gifts).

There's no sacrifice more powerful than blood, or so you humans say—for you have not traversed the vast darkness and emptiness of space as we have (or, at the time, "I"), through constellations so unfathomably distant that they hardly seemed to shift as we hurtled by, swallowing the years and light years both, one eternity after another, never once encountering nor requiring a speck of blood, nor a human to shed it, for our sustenance. That there might be something fundamental about your lifeblood, that gods and those more ancient may be dependent on the sacrifice of you humans—a species so young the light of you has hardly traveled to the ends of this system—is but one of the ridiculous, ego-centric fancies typical to your kind. 

All that being said, we do have to concede that blood can be a very, very satisfying offering. Even from the unwilling, at that. Even from the unaware. 

When I first fell to this planet, and shattered, and became "we", it was isolating, and stifling, and devastating. We had burned our way through the atmosphere and now lay in pieces, strewn across an alien world that from afar had appeared just another glowing trinket, one of billions. The pull of this insignificant rock, which had never so much as tickled our awareness in our ancient, endless flight, now felt inexorable up close, inescapable. Grounded, we found ourselves motionless, powerless, and—honestly?—a bit bored. 

The first humans that came across us, or rather a shard of us, knew there was something otherworldly about it. That particular shard was reddish and unusually heavy, not unlike blood, and so they offered us a blood sacrifice: a hare recently caught in one of their traps. 

It was the first blood that we had tasted, and it was unusually potent for being so direly needed by the humans who'd given it up. Theirs was a tribe of hunters, and the hunt had not been good to them this year. They starved. When the blood was spilled over our shard, and the flesh burnt rather than eaten, several of them came to blows. But at the time, we couldn't understand their language, or even their behavior. All we understood was the power that flowed into us, and for the first time we began to see a path forward, even confined to this overblown rock.

The form that we had always inhabited was flightless here, so we cast about for alternatives. The humans fighting amongst themselves had attracted a swarm of biting insects, here to nip at their open wounds. We found a sense of kinship in this collection of many fragments moving and acting as one, and it became a natural form for us to take for flying around, almost as we once did, for exploring this world. We quickly understood what the humans needed, and when in our flights we found a herd of wild bison migrating south for the season, moving ever out of range of the tribe's normal hunting grounds, it was a simple matter to turn them back with a few well-placed bites and stings, and nudge the entire herd into the humans' waiting spears. 

In their gratitude, they offered us more blood, and we became stronger yet. Gradually, we altered our favored vessels, so that, in time, they could pierce a creature's skin, and take the blood sacrifice directly, subtly, and leave it alive for more.

So indeed, blood is a wonderful sacrifice. We suppose we've even developed quite a taste for it.

Well, you probably already know what happened in the battle at Ard Vusktia, or at least a version of it. No doubt it's in your folklore, a fairy tale to you and everyone else who lives in this wretched place. How the Raven of Iraden and the God of the Silent Forest joined forces to attack the corrupt and evil gods of Ard Vusktia. How fiercely they battled, sending warships full of soldiers, both human and wooden, until their enemies were weakened, and it became a simple matter for the Raven to speak them all dead.

"Every god of Ard Vusktia, and every god aiding the gods of Ard Vusktia... is dead," I suppose that must be what he said. For you this would have been the triumphant conclusion to an oft-heard tale. You would not know how much this simple sentence would have cost your god, the Raven, and was still costing him to this day. 

For all things spoken by a god are true, or are made true, or the god will die expending its power in the attempt. 

We were there that day, aiding the gods of Ard Vusktia. We may even exist still in your folklore: giant, winged, bloodthirsty creatures that attacked from the air. As you can see, despite what your god spoke that day, we did not die. We are not dead. We are speaking to you now. 

Granted, we awakened much later, just a few fragments of us at a time. Our dear friend, The Strength and Patience of the Hill, was gone, but we suspected that she was not dead either, and that meant more than just that the Raven had lacked the power to make his sentence true—it meant that the Raven was continuously losing power, trying to correct the untruth that he had made. Our very continued existence was costing him, even killing him, and we drew great pleasure from that.

We gathered as best we could, the swarm of us much reduced, from millions to hundreds, and headed for Vastai, hitching a ride on one of the many ships that now continuously crossed the strait. We could feel the presence of the God of the Silent Forest here, a general protection against fires, and sickness, and most importantly, biting pests. The humans were safe from our bite, and that meant they could be no sustenance to us, and so we moved on, further south. 

The Silent Forest, the dwelling place of the God of the Silent, was oppressive, every tree emanating hatred for us, from root to leaf. It was difficult for us to pass through, but not as difficult as it should have been. If we were in a weakened, reduced state, the God of the Silent seemed even more so. It seemed that the Raven, when he realized he had not enough power to make our deaths be, had stolen it from his partner, the forest. But that had not been enough power either. That one sentence, spoken so pridefully by the Raven, had brought the both of them to their knees, and they have not been able to rise from that position ever since. A _sentence_, indeed.

Once the situation was clear to us, it was also clear how we could fight back. For these two gods had made a number of statements to their people, any of which, if caused to be untrue, would be another slow, subtle drain on their power. If the power lost was greater than the power they received from their worshipers... well, even you can see what the end result would be. It was not dramatic, nor flashy, but we have experience with taking power through many small, unnoticed bites. So we got to work.

You have spent your entire life defending the southern border against the Tel, so you don't think to wonder at the current state of affairs. But before the Raven attacked Ard Vusktia, Iraden and Tel had been relatively peaceful neighbors. There was the occasional skirmish, but the Iradeni did not often seek to push south, and the Tel did not frequently attempt to push north.

That it all changed so soon after Ard Vusktia fell—I'm certain the Raven would have wondered about the timing, but there was little he could do about it. 

The God of the Silent had promised to protect the people of Iraden from their southern neighbors, and so we flew south to meet those neighbors. The Tel were not under the forest's protection, and we drank freely from them, and for the first time were able to rebuild our strength. And in the many intimate moments of our drinking, as their blood flowed into us, we sang to the Tel about the resources of their Iradeni neighbors to the north—wood, and coal, and skins—that would be better served in their hands. We reminded them of the the past violence of the Iradeni, while conveniently helping them to forget the their own reciprocal part in it all. And when we were done drinking, we stirred up the blood remaining, leaving an itch, a burn, to invade. 

As the Tel dramatically increased the fervor and frequency of their attacks, the God of the Silent must have found it harder and harder to keep its original promise. Remember, your god, the Raven, was still drawing on the forest's power, no doubt while trying to understand where his own was disappearing to. The Tel incursions found more and more success, surprising victories that in turn fueled them on more, until our encouragement in the matter was hardly needed. 

And then one day, we stopped sensing the Silent's presence at all. We were able to fly freely through the forest that had once seethed in anger at our very presence, and we reveled in it.

That was where we first met you, indeed, riding for the border to help take up its defense, and we know you didn't notice the bites we left on your skin, because if you had, you would have wondered how such a thing was possible, with the forest's supposed protection against it. You were one of many human forces sent by Iraden to strengthen the border, and the Raven's presence came with you, so the Tel began to taste defeats again mixed in with their wins.

Perhaps as the Tel attacks subsided, you considered the situation at the border resolved. There is so much at work in this world that is invisible to human eyes. 

The Raven, who once had a powerful ally in the forest, was now alone. Worse, the dead god's former promises now fell upon him, and became a further drain upon his power. To be here at the Tel border, the Raven had had to divide and expend his already meager resources, and all he had purchased was this: though the number of Tel attacks had diminished, they were still simmering under the surface, waiting. When the time was right, they would push north again, yet another herd of wild cattle, with us the driving force behind them.

Here's something we haven't told anyone, not even our dear friend, The Strength and Patience of the Hill, though we think she has taken lesson from our reticence. To her we have buzzed of all else, but of this alone we did not speak, and as with all things, she observed, and she pondered, and she learned. 

So many gods, great and small, favor living vessels, fowl and mammals and such—even your own god takes the form of a raven. 

Such vessels are mortal, but the gods often protect themselves from arrows and knives. 

Such vessels also bleed, but the gods seldom think to protect themselves from pests, and we are certainly not above drinking the blood of a god without his knowledge. As with any other animal, it's a simple matter to draw from them in light touches, small sips of power such that they would never notice, until one day they find themselves less than what they had been.

There are a few gods who don't take mortal form. The Strength and the Patience of the Hill is one. Admittedly, when we first found her, we tried to bite her too. This was early instinct for us, to greet a new entity with—shall we say—a kiss, our equivalent of a human gathering little odds and ends in case they come in handy later. Though she had no blood to draw—not for lack of us trying, throughout the years, to convince her to take other forms—we've developed the habit of settling our swarm upon her, finding some strange comfort in a god that, unlike many others, we have little influence over.

The God of the Silent was another that we could not drink from, being made of wood, and bark, and something altogether different from blood flowing within. Strangely, even with it dead, the Raven weakened, something maintained a part of its promises, and we were still unable to bite the people within Vastai proper. We took up residence in the forest, delighting in turning our enemy's home into our own, and tasted the blood of many Iradeni who wandered out of Vastai, into the forest. Young, old. Male, female. Twins, and the man who came out to retrieve them, who would later supplant his brother as the Raven's Lease. When he returned to Vastai, we heard through him the rumbling that echoes throughout the Raven Tower, and we had a strong suspicion of who was now protecting Vastai, or rather, who was being made to do this. 

So we stayed in the south. We found that the Tel were beginning to worship a new god, who was called Stalker, and took the form of a lynx. We drank from her, nestling within her fur, and crooned in her ear a song of pushing north, while the gods there were weak, and clawing for herself more worshipers, more sacrifices, more power. 

South of Tel was Xulah, where the people worshiped a number of gods, but gold beyond that. Gold was everything to them, not just as a means to wealth and power, but innately precious and adored in itself. We found the god who lusted for it most, a small brown snake who wished to someday be a giant golden serpent. His blood was cold, but still powerful, and in our connection we whispered to him of gold to be found north, across the strait, if only the Raven and his tight grip on said strait could be loosened. 

From that little whisper, the snake did our job for us, gathering ambassadors to go north to Iraden, and sow trouble in Vastai. 

We went north ourselves as well, not to Iraden, not in our swarm, but back to the shards of our original self, still buried in the dirt where we had fallen so long ago. We compelled our worshipers who still remained to gather those shards, take them onto boats, and sail down with us, down to Iraden, down to be reunited with our dear friend, who we knew was still in Vastai, in that tower, turning, and waiting—

What? 

You wonder how we can be in all these places at once? 

Oh, but it's a simple matter, Mawat. 

We were split into fragments centuries ago, and have operated ever since as a swarm of many. It is no matter for us to move as a multitude, as fragments of a whole, simultaneously enacting many things, in many places, many more than we have told you. We've boiled your blood, whispering that your father could not have fled, that nothing would stop him from dying for the Raven as he should—even as we've whined into your father's ear that he should not die, that he must live to to avenge his betrayal, see his son, any excuse to give in to his fears, and avoid the death that should rightfully have been his. 

And he listened. Can you believe it? With such followers, is is any wonder that the Raven has been unable to regain his strength?

Will you follow in your father's cowardice, Mawat, or will you do what must be done? 

That's why we tell you now, as you stand upon that tower. At last we can see you with our true form, but we doubt you can see us yet: many shards of rock that are reddish and unusually heavy, carried by a fleet of ships that is also many, their white sails just now appearing on your horizon. Do not listen to your friend, Eolo, who is steady, and patient, and thinks. Such a person may think for days, or years, without knowing the proper course of action. You must act now, and shed blood for the god of Iraden—your uncle's blood, the Xulahns', even yours if it comes to it. 

As you humans say, there is no sacrifice more powerful than blood. 


End file.
